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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29062620">threaded by the same weave</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/narcomanic/pseuds/narcomanic'>narcomanic</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Pyre (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Light Angst, POV Alternating, POV Second Person, also hedwyn goes up first and neither jodi nor the reader take it as well as they thought, working my oc!reader headcanon into something semi-cohesive</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 11:01:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,325</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29062620</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/narcomanic/pseuds/narcomanic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It seems everyone else is fast asleep, for even the drive-imps have ceased their gibbering. In the silence that follows, Jodariel’s gaze wanders around the room, painfully alighting on each left-behind item of Hedwyn’s. Little bruises being poked. She stares at his empty raiments, wondering what’s to become of them now, almost long enough to forget her company, who is now looking at her with a sad smile.</p>
<p>“Fancy a once-in-a-lifetime chance to second-guess the Reader’s decisions?” the Reader says.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jodariel &amp; The Reader (Pyre)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>threaded by the same weave</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hedwyn was right. They did burn all your books.</p>
<p>But what really hurts the most are all the other things they burned. The things they destroyed, not because they were illegal, but simply because they were yours.</p>
<p>See, it was easier to hide a few pots of ink, a stack of papers, or sticks of charcoal in a room already filled with paints and canvases. A sort of protective camouflage. You like to think it bought you some time, a few years maybe, before the rumours finally caught up with you in your tiny studio, all your oils and pastels, letters and essays gone up in flames all the same.</p>
<p>Your final, sardonic thought before they cast you down into the Sclorian is this: <em>At least they didn’t break your hands</em>.</p>
<p>What breaks instead is your leg. If it weren’t for Hedwyn and his well-timed compassion, you would’ve surely shrivelled away in the Sandfolds, wasting your last breath on cursing your luck.</p>
<p>Although you’re not exactly an expert purveyor on the subject, the Book of Rites is unlike any other you’ve ever held. Its pages feel softer and warmer to the touch than regular paper (if it even is constructed out of material so mundane), and though you dare not try, you’re fairly sure you couldn’t make a single pen mark stick to their surface.</p>
<p>Your single writing implement is a carefully rationed thing, anyway. In the mess of the blackwagon, you scavenge a stray pen and a few scraps of paper. The pen is a mere stub, but holding it still gives you an illicit thrill. The first drawing into your exile feels like regrowing a limb you hadn’t realised lost. You sketch a view of the Downside from atop the blackwagon, each stroke of the pen almost reverent. In an unused corner, you doodle the different shapes of your companions’ masks and raiments. On the other side, a smudged life drawing of Hedwyn doing his best to focus on cooking while Dae and Ti’zo flutter around him, one more figuratively than the other.</p>
<p>You chronicle your early days in these little snapshots, but soon run out of space. Try as you might, with all your tact, to inquire Falcon Ron about finding you some more paper and inks, it seems his interest in Commonwealth contraband is limited to the more shiny sort. You’ve all but given up on pursuing your craft any further when the path of the Rites guides you all to the residence of the bog-crone Bertrude.</p>
<p>While the bog-dwellers circle around the blackwagon, appraising and preparing it for whatever upgrades Tariq’s instructions are to be, you take the opportunity to peek inside Bertrude’s shop. It’s a small space, made even smaller by the mounds of equipment and ingredients spilling from each shelf and crate or hanging from the ceiling. Half the stuff you see, you have no idea what it is for, and half of that you avoid touching out of sheer self-preservation. But then you spot something on the time side of the room: a rack of quills. You rush to pick one of them up, turn it around in your hands, and test the nib on the back of your palm. Below them is a row of small bottles, their innards mostly glistening in shades of black and muddy brown.</p>
<p>Bertrude has slithered in after you, and appears surprisingly quietly at your side.</p>
<p>“Sandalwood… He requires inks?” she asks, indicating the row of bottles. You turn to her, shaking your head.</p>
<p>“No… I mean, I don’t think he asked—” You cut yourself off and then ask, with an air of urgency you can’t quite restrain, “How much for these? And do you have… books? Paper?”</p>
<p>Bertrude considers you in silence for a moment, nails tapping against the shelf, and then motions you to follow her. “We… may be able to come to an agreement,” she says.</p>
<p>When you leave the shop, it is with a bag swinging heavier at your hip and a spring in your still uneven step. Outside, your companions are gathered around the blackwagon, watching the bog-crones, Hedwyn surreptitiously and Jodariel with open suspicion. You flash them a brief smile as you join them. You all continue watching the crones for a time, until Jodariel huffs in irritation.</p>
<p>“What,” she says flatly. You glance up at her.</p>
<p>“What?” you ask.</p>
<p>Hedwyn shakes his head, too, though he hasn’t quite yet lost his usual smile. “No, that’s definitely the cheeriest I’ve ever seen anyone in Flagging Hands,” he says.</p>
<p>You shrug. “Think I made some new friends.”</p>
<p>“Did you now,” Jodariel says, then tenses up as the bog-crones start moving the blackwagon towards the back of Bertrude’s shop and seems to have to fight to keep herself from running after them. “Tariq be damned, but I still don’t like this plan of his.”</p>
<p>“Eh, I think they’re alright,” you say. You leave to find a place to settle until dawn and as you do, you catch a glimpse of Jodariel and Hedwyn gesturing their bemusement to each other in an unspoken exchange.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>The journey to the Glade to Lu has been an uneventful one, allowing Jodariel a welcome bit of extra rest. The conversation between Sandalwood and Tariq blankets the driving space in a steady susurrus of half-caught words and questions. It is in the middle of it that Tariq gets her attention.</p>
<p>“Captain, if I may,” he says. From anyone else, she might take it as lip, but Tariq sincerely doesn’t seem capable of such a thing, so she merely inclines her head in response. “We are approaching the Glade. Would you be so kind as to fetch the Reader to discuss the proceedings?”</p>
<p>She pushes herself to her feet and, after a quick glance around, heads towards the common room where the Reader is most likely to be found. She finds the Reader already facing the doorway as she enters, sitting in the corner she has quietly picked as her own, a notebook open in her lap and a brush poised above it. The creaking wood of the blackwagon does little to muffle the sound of her footsteps, Jodariel must admit.</p>
<p>She gestures to the room behind her. “Tariq wants a word before the Rite,” she says.</p>
<p>“Oh, we’re already…? Alright,” the Reader says. She looks briefly at her hands full and then carefully sets her brush aside among the ensemble of colours she acquired during their stop in Flagging Hands. The walls of the common room have been decorated with some of her creations in the time since, mostly by Dae, who seems particularly fascinated with the Reader’s chosen hobby. Jodariel examines a pinned landscape of somewhere in the Sea of Solis. She won’t insult the Reader by denying the talent in the painting, but fails to see the point of spending so much time memorialising visages as dismal as the Downside.</p>
<p>The Reader meanwhile is slowly waving a hand over the open page, waiting for the ink to dry. “Is Dae around?” she asks.</p>
<p>“Somewhere, I’m sure,” Jodariel says. “Why?”</p>
<p>“Eh, she wanted to see this when I was done, but I think it’s going to have to wait until next we’re back in the Nest of Triesta,” the Reader says, examining her handiwork. “Was a bit too busy to get a good look at this thing, would you believe.”</p>
<p>Jodariel tilts her head to get a better look at the page. It appears to be a half-finished recreation of the horse-headed monstrosity that towered over their last arena for the Rites. The Reader takes her gesture for interest and offers her the book.</p>
<p>“Here, if you want. I need to clean this stuff up anyway,” she says, and leaves Jodariel with the notebook while she turns to cork up inkwells and gather up pencils.</p>
<p>Jodariel flips back a page to see an inked drawing of the minstrel’s lute, resting against a table. Before that, assorted sketches of different kinds of fungi, some of which she even recognises. Then, she turns a page and fails to suppress the snort of laughter that it prompts.</p>
<p>“Did he <em>pose</em> for this?” she asks, holding up the extravagant drawing of Ti’zo, one wing aloft and fangs bared in a supposedly ferocious display.</p>
<p>The Reader laughs in kind. “Oh yeah, he kind of noticed what I was doing and then just… went with it,” she grins.</p>
<p>Jodariel shakes her head and leafs through the rest of the notebook. The blackwagon, stationed for the night with its awnings spread. Dae’s star-shaped bundle of sticks, together with a bunch of smaller circles, all containing different constellations. The strange stalks that grow on the shores of Underking Pass.</p>
<p>Then, a familiar sight. A great, dark shape curving in on itself. The detail is enough to impart a sense of the texture on the horn’s surface, not that Jodariel needs any reminder of it. Nor does she need this feeling of unease. But… there it is, depicted in the same level of detail, with the same air of studious curiosity as Ti’zo’s feathers, as the strings in Tariq’s lute. As something that just… <em>is</em>, without signifying anything about her or her nature.</p>
<p>She steals a glance at the Reader, who is busy wiping her brushes clean and setting them somewhere they won’t scatter during travel. She doesn’t appear to have noticed any of Jodariel’s turmoil, and so, before that has time to change, Jodariel flips away to the next page and pretends to study it, though try as she might, she cannot afterwards recall what it depicted.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>The Rite against the Chastity leaves you in an unusually foul mood that is not improved by your little chat with Volfred afterwards. The encroaching headache that began in the middle of the Rite is now hammering at your temples, and as much as some tiny, stupid part of you wants to defy Volfred’s recommendation to rest, being petty at a time like this would serve no one.</p>
<p>You drop the Book of Rites unceremoniously with the others and stomp into the common room, where you promptly curl up in your chosen cot. The room is blessedly dark and quiet, save for the occasional muffled sound of your companions moving about outside. It takes a while for your brain to cease its seething enough to allow yourself to nod off. You drift in and out of fitful sleep, unaware of how much time has passed between one moment and the next.</p>
<p>Eventually you awaken, aware of someone’s presence in the room with you. You turn around to see Hedwyn, appearing hesitant whether or not to rouse you. Seeing you awake, he gives you a somewhat relieved smile.</p>
<p>“Did I wake you?” he asks. You wave him off.</p>
<p>“It’s fine. Just… resting my eyes.” You notice him holding a bowl of something and scramble to sit up. “Sorry, did I miss supper? I was just…” But now it’s his turn to wave off your apologies.</p>
<p>“No, it’s nothing. You looked like you could use the rest.” He offers you the still-warm bowl of stew. You accept with gratitude and let the dish warm your hands for a moment before digging in.</p>
<p>Hedwyn sits with you in silence while you eat. Finally, he clears his throat. “Kind of puts our little plan for freedom into perspective, knowing that’s the type we’re up against, huh?” he says.</p>
<p>A bitter taste in your mouth that has nothing to do with Hedwyn’s cooking. You stab at a chunk of beet with slightly more force than is necessary. “He <em>cheats</em>,” you spit before you can restrain your tone.</p>
<p>Hedwyn hums in agreement. “Yeah, that’s… definitely a part of it,” he says.</p>
<p>“And it’s already hard!” You continue, feeling that seething beneath your skin rise up again, until it feels like you’re bursting. “I’m <em>barely</em> getting the hang of this, and then people like him, they just—” Your hand curls into a fist, nails digging into the skin of your palm. “It’s like he <em>enjoys</em> making it worse.”</p>
<p>Hedwyn is silent after your outburst. Just before you can start apologising for lashing out like that, he speaks up. “Is this about what Sandalwood said?” he asks.</p>
<p>You freeze. It takes you a second to realise that, no, he is referring to the conversation from when you first met, not the one from earlier tonight. You open your mouth, but Hedwyn, surprisingly gently, cuts you off.</p>
<p>“Because I meant what I said back then. I made a promise to all of you, and I’m not about to back out before we’ve had a chance to make good on it,” he says.</p>
<p>You listlessly poke at the remainders of your cooling meal. “But what if…” <em>What if he’s right? </em>You can’t quite bring yourself to finish that thought. You heave a sigh. “What if I can’t do it? What if… I can’t get you home?”</p>
<p>Hedwyn does not reply at first. He looks at you, then around the dim room, and shrugs. “In that case… I guess we stay here. Realistically speaking, that’s the only other option,” he says, then shakes his head. “But that’s an <em>if</em>.”</p>
<p>You slump against the wall, staring off into the distance. “Seems like a pretty big if to me,” you mutter.</p>
<p>“Sure. It is,” Hedwyn says. “But we’ve got this far. Even if they had to cheat, we still won. You won.”</p>
<p>You let his words sit in your mind. The whispers of pettiness and doubt rear their head, but you stubbornly stomp them down. If not for your sake, then Hedwyn’s.</p>
<p>You finally look back at him and nod. “All right,” you say. “Thank you.”</p>
<p>Hedwyn’s smile is as bright as ever. “Anytime,” he says. “Remember that. We do this together, or not at all.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>The Moonlight Alcove is exactly as secure as Sandalwood said it would be, but Jodariel still takes the time to do a second sweep of the perimeter. It feels good to focus on the routine, to just do what she’s always done and do it well. It lets her not think about Hedwyn for a moment. The cool air isn’t doing as much as she hoped it would, though.</p>
<p>She should be happy. She <em>is</em> happy. Yet, a part of her is trying to crawl back to those early days of her exile — cast down without even a chance to say goodbye to her children. Knowing she’d never see them again.</p>
<p>Well, she did get to see one of them. Only to then lose him a second time.</p>
<p>She closes her eyes and breathes in deep. She’s faced far worse than this in the Downside. Scribes be damned, this will not be the thing that breaks her.</p>
<p>A shiver shakes her out of her thoughts. The night is only going to get colder, and it’s not like she’ll actually tire herself out by standing guard. She tugs her cloak tighter and turns around to head back into the blackwagon.</p>
<p>She’s expecting everyone else to have turned in for the night, but upon entering she finds the Reader perched on the stairs to the common room. She appears quite lost in thought, and is slowly turning something over in her hands. Every now and then, the object catches the light from the lone lantern at the bottom of the stairs.</p>
<p>Jodariel waits for some kind of reaction, but when it becomes increasingly clear the Reader hasn’t registered her presence at all, she quietly clears her throat for politeness’ sake.</p>
<p>The Reader jumps at the sound, and the talisman hits the floor with a dull clang. For a moment, she seems torn between alarmed, embarrassed and worried that the noise may have woken someone up. She glances behind her at the closed door of the common room, then quickly bends to pick up the talisman, which Jodariel now recognises as the one Hedwyn used to wear.</p>
<p>The Reader flashes a smile at her. “Can’t sleep either?” she asks.</p>
<p>“Just keeping watch,” Jodariel says. It’s not a lie, per se, and the Reader is tactful enough not to ask more.</p>
<p>It seems everyone else is fast asleep, for even the drive-imps have ceased their gibbering. In the silence that follows, Jodariel’s gaze wanders around the room, painfully alighting on each left-behind item of Hedwyn’s. Little bruises being poked. She stares at his empty raiments, wondering what’s to become of them now, almost long enough to forget her company, who is now looking at her with a sad smile.</p>
<p>“Fancy a once-in-a-lifetime chance to second-guess the Reader’s decisions?” the Reader says.</p>
<p>Jodariel shakes her head. “It was his wish that we wouldn’t,” she says. The Reader makes a sound that almost passes for a laugh.</p>
<p>“Yeah, it was, wasn’t it,” she says. But then her face crumples a little bit. “It… doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to have opinions, though. You can just…” She’s fiddling with the talisman again, worrying the sharper edges of it with her fingertips. “Don’t just wait until— until it’s too late for me to <em>do</em> anything about it.”</p>
<p>Jodariel listens to her with a frown, then leans against the blackwagon’s wall and crosses her arms. After choosing her words for a while, she speaks. “I don’t disagree with your decision,” she says carefully. “But… I wouldn’t mind hearing why. Why him?”</p>
<p>The Reader shrugs. “I mean, he was the first, right?” she says. Jodariel stares at her a while, not following her meaning.</p>
<p>“Yes?” she prompts.</p>
<p>“No, I mean… He was the first, the first one to contact Volfred. The one who found you, and Rukey, and me.” The Reader looks down at her hands. “I think… whatever’s going to happen on the other side, he’s going to have to do that again. Find people, get them to follow him. He’s good at that sort of thing.”</p>
<p>It’s a fair assessment. Jodariel smiles despite herself.</p>
<p>“Meaning that, hopefully, next time, when you go back, there’ll be more people than just him waiting,” the Reader finishes, and the smile drops from Jodariel’s lips. A cold, hollow feeling blooms in the pit of her stomach. The absolute casualness with which the Reader says those four words, like they aren’t the heaviest thing in the world.</p>
<p>
  <em> When you go back. </em>
</p>
<p>Jodariel spent the better part of a decade letting go of her old life in the Commonwealth, then almost another living, if not content, then at least accepting of her fate in the Downside. The thought of going back after all this time, as if there was something for her to go back to, is… She struggles to keep her expression blank, but some of her thoughts must have shown on her face, for the Reader is now looking at her with worry in her eyes.</p>
<p>Jodariel clears her throat. “I guess we’ll see,” she says as neutrally as she can. She turns away and intends to bid the Reader goodnight—</p>
<p>“Jodariel?” —but before she can excuse herself, the Reader calls out to her. Jodariel stops and musters all her calm before facing the Reader.</p>
<p>The Reader looks at her with an expression as earnest as Jodariel has ever seen. “You will see him again,” she says. “I promise you that. I will make sure you see him again.”</p>
<p>Words refuse to cooperate with her. Jodariel swallows around the lump in her throat and nods silently. She does not bid the Reader farewell before retiring for the night.</p>
<p>Back in the privacy of darkness, Jodariel rests her head against a wall, clenching and unclenching her fists. She presses a hand to her ribs and breathes in deep, then out, until the hammering in her chest ceases. There it is again, that hollow sensation in the pit of her stomach. Like narrowly missing a Highwing trap. Like the gentlest of daggers digging into her back.</p>
<p>She had almost forgotten what hope felt like.</p>
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